Target

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that Apple launched a bevy of new products and services yesterday in a star-studded (can you say Bono?) event in Cupertino, Calif. Of all the the major announcements — the launch of the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Watch and Apple Pay — the latter is arguably the most important news for retailers.

As the summer winds down, students head back to school and there's a predictable upward trend in e-commerce activity in a number of categories. Scholars and their families are flocking to university websites to select courses, register and make tuition payments, and they're heading in droves to retailers like Ikea, Best Buy and Target to buy important supplies, furniture, electronics, clothing and more for the coming academic year. The National Retail Federation's 2014 Back-to-School Survey predicts the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669.28 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics this back-to-school season, up 5 percent from 2013.

Just when you thought it was safe to start accepting credit cards again…
Home Depot confirmed yesterday that it’s investigating some “unusual activity” with regards to its customer data.

A payment card industry security consortium warned retailers on Wednesday of the urgency to secure their systems against "Backoff," a malicious software program that steals card numbers. Backoff "represents a very real threat to the security of cardholder data in all organizations," wrote the PCI Security Standards Council, an organization founded by MasterCard, Visa, American Express and other credit card companies. The U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security warned last week that 1,000 U.S. businesses may be infected by Backoff, which wasn't detected by most anti-virus security software until earlier this month. 

Attention fashion lovers: It just got easier to shop on Instagram. Both Nordstrom and Target are teaming up with Curalate, a visual marketing and analytics firm, to launch Like2Buy, a platform that seamlessly allows Instagram users to make purchases when they see an item they like on their feeds. The concept is dangerously easy: By clicking on the retailers’ profile pages, users can bring up a gallery of shoppable Instagram photos, and click through to go directly to the retailer's website. There, they can read product reviews and make a purchase through the retailer's secure page.

Target is keeping its doors open later at more than half of its U.S. stores, hoping to snag guests who are putting off shopping until well after dark and might have gone elsewhere. The chain's nearly 1,800 U.S. stores had typically opened at 8 a.m. and closed at 10 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and at 9 p.m. on Sundays. The new hours will keep stores open until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. on Sundays and until 11 p.m. or midnight on other days. The hours will vary by store; some, for example, will only have extended hours on weekends. 

The interconnectedness and rapid development of mobile technology are revolutionizing the consumer market. Retailers have fully computerized mechanisms driven by complex applications to bring their products to the mobile market, which has introduced serious security flaws into the ecosystem that can damage customers and financial giants, jeopardizing entire retail chains. Hackers have increasingly exploited these vulnerabilities in unsecure web applications using tools that can easily be found online, resulting in numerous high-profile hackings.

America's supercenters are dying a slow death. Huge big-box stores like Wal-Mart Supercenters and Target are being phased out in favor of "some combination of value and convenience," Goldman Sachs recently wrote. "Just about every major trend we're following right now bodes poorly for power center retail," Doug Stephens, founder of

Target has for the first time come out publicly in support of gay marriage, as a growing number of high-profile businesses take positions on the divisive issue. In revealing Tuesday that it had signed a court brief backing marriage equality in a ­pending court case, Target joins other blue-chip names such as Starbucks, Apple and Intel that have sided publicly with same-sex marriage advocates in court cases or ballot issues. "It is our belief that everyone should be treated equally under the law, and that includes rights we

Target announced today that its second quarter earnings will include a $148 million charge related to losses stemming from a data breach that occurred during last year's holiday shopping season. It also warned that its profit for that period would be softer than expected. During the fourth quarter of 2013, Target experienced a data breach in which an intruder gained unauthorized access to its network and stole payment card and other guest information. More than 110 million consumers were affected.